Cases of Equality: Idle No More and the Protests at Standing Rock

Ionut Nicolescu
York University

Abstract

Jacques Rancière’s work has offered some insightful and provocative ideas on the nature and meaning ofdemocratic politics. Recently, he has suggested that the Occupy movement presents “the most interesting”example of what he defi nes as radical democratic politics. Using this observation as a starting point, this paperapplies Rancière’s ideas to two recent political events that carried within them a strong Indigenous voice—the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protests and the Idle No More (INM) movement. Th e argument putforward is that both the DAPL protests and the INM represent examples of democratic politics as envisionedby Rancière, politics which emerge from a general assumption of equality.